The Next Morning
by CrlkSeasons
Summary: Takes Tom Paris and Kathryn Janeway through Tom's first morning back on duty after his thirty days in the brig. The story also contains Paris/Torres elements.
1. Chapter 1

The Next Morning 

Chapter 1

It was early in what counted as daytime on Voyager. Captain Kathryn Janeway was already at work in her quarters, in full uniform, hair neatly in place, familiar cup of coffee at hand. They would soon be entering something called 'Devore' space. The little that they knew about these people suggested that the Devore would demand that Voyager adhere strictly to local laws and protocols while traveling through their space. It would help if Voyager's Captain had a better idea of exactly what those protocols entailed. She hoped to get more information from a freighter that they were scheduled to meet up with late today. Meanwhile Kathryn was clearing away as much routine business as possible.

Voyager's Captain had another reason for being up early today. This was the morning that Tom Paris returned to duty. Kathryn reached out to touch the lid of a small box that she kept on her desk. Inside there was a single black pip that had once ridden on Tom's collar. For years she had kept a similar box that had held another black pip. That was the pip that Starfleet had granted to Lt. Tuvok, promoting him to the rank of Lieutenant Commander for his undercover work with the Maquis. At first she had delayed giving it to him to avoid creating resentment and causing further difficulties for him with the Maquis crew. Then Tuvok had misjudged badly, assisting B'Elanna to obtain technology from Sikaris. The pip had stayed in its box for over two more years. In time she had been able to present it to its intended owner. She would keep this pip safe too, until the time came when she could return it to Tom.

She had arranged a meeting with Tom at 11:00 today. She had chosen this time carefully. It allowed him a few hours to get his bearings. Yet, it was not so late in the day that the meeting would weigh on his mind all day, or on hers either.

Kathryn took a sip of her coffee and made a face when she realized that she had let it get cold. She considered her options. She could drink the coffee cold, be frugal and simply reheat it or remain a purist and replicate a fresh cup. "What the heck," she decided and got up to replicate a fresh cup.

"Tuvok to Captain Janeway." Tuvok's voice interrupted her rendezvous with the replicator.

"Janeway here," she responded.

"Mr. Paris has been released from the brig. I have escorted him to his quarters where I believe he will require time to 'freshen up'. I have notified Commander Chakotay to expect Mr. Paris to report to him in the Astrometrics lab at 07:30."

"Very good, Tuvok. How is Mr. Paris?"

Despite what he considered to be imprecise phrasing, Tuvok knew that the Captain was requesting his professional evaluation of the physical and mental state of the crewmember who had so recently been a prisoner. "Mr. Paris was a bit disoriented at first. That is natural and was to be expected. He was otherwise able to function normally and seems ready and able to return to duty."

"Thank you, Tuvok. Please ask Commander Chakotay to see me in my ready room at his earliest convenience after he is finished in Astrometrics."

"Very well, Captain." Tuvok signed off.

On a lower deck, Tom Paris had completed his transition from brig-appropriate to duty-ready attire and was making his way to B'Elanna Torres' quarters. When he entered the turbolift, he turned around to watch the grey doors close in front of his face. He waited for a reaction. Nothing. It was strange. After his confinement in the Akritiri prison he couldn't stand to be inside his quarters without having a door open somewhere. He had taken to leaving the door to his bathroom open. He also had the small partition between his sleeping and living areas removed. That helped to get him through those first few moments of waking when he was still on the edge of sleep. But, even at his claustrophobic worst, he had never felt any reaction to the small spaces inside turbolifts or shuttlecraft. Maybe it was because they were taking him somewhere. In his mind they were a part of a journey, not a prison.

When Tom reached B'Elanna's door, he stopped. Normally he would have entered her code and walked right in. Today, he thought back to her teasing order to report to her quarters at 07:00. He activated the signal and waited. The door swished open and B'Elanna was there, standing in front of him, warm, vibrant and real. For a moment he could think of nothing else. After a month of anticipating this moment, it was here. "Ensign Paris reporting as ordered, Ma'am," he announced in the cheeky tone that he used when he wasn't quite sure what was going to happen and didn't want to let on that he wasn't sure.

"Ensign Paris," B'Elanna acknowledged. She took his hand and led him inside her quarters. They stopped in the living area where she turned to face him. "Ensign Paris," she whispered as she reached up to trace her fingers along the side of his face. "Ensign Paris," she said as she let her hand linger over the spot where she had bitten him all that time ago. "Ensign Paris," she repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. Then she leaned up and whispered a lewd proposal in his ear that made him burst out laughing.

"Ensign," she smiled up at him as he smiled down into her eyes. "No matter what title you carry, I will always be proud of you."

As was so often the case when his emotions overwhelmed him, Tom could not get out an answer in words. He gathered her close, burying his face in her hair. He held on as tightly as he could, trying to somehow transfer what he was feeling directly to her. She hugged him fiercely in return. After a few minutes he was able to whisper, "I missed you so much, so much."

"I missed you too, Tom," she whispered back. Then to help him recover his composure, she teased lightly. "Maybe you should stick around more. I've gotten used to having you around."

He loosened his hold to tease back. "You mean like that old pair of slippers that you like to kick around in?"

She thought about this a moment. "No," she decided. "You're more like that pair of high heeled shoes that I replicated for the dance a few months ago, the ones that made me feel beautiful, desirable and sexy."

He smiled.

Then, because they really didn't have time to take this much further right now, she added, "and pinched my toes so much that my feet hurt like hell halfway through the evening."

Tom laughed out loud.

"You'd better get going." B'Elanna told him, once again brushing her hand lightly along his face. "You've got work to do. I'll see you at dinner."

He took her hand and squeezed it gently before letting go. This was a now familiar gesture, his response in a silent dialogue reaffirming the love between them.

"Until dinner," Tom said, making it a promise.

"Until dinner," B'Elanna agreed and watched him go.

Author's notes:

1) Star Trek treats a change in rank from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander as a major promotion; note the sailing ship celebration arranged for Worf in The Next Generation, and the party and pranks arranged for Tuvok in the episode, Revulsion. With Captain's Janeway's established reluctance to promote Ensign Kim, where did Tuvok's promotion come from? There was no obvious reason to promote him at this time. I chose to explain it as a delayed promotion initiated by Starfleet, postponed at first for the reasons suggested in this story and then held back further as a consequence of Tuvok's actions on Sikaris.

2) About the changes to Tom's quarters, if you're interested, check out the changes from the early, to the post 'Chute' episodes. It is only at the very end of the series, when Tom and B'Elanna are married and living together, that we again see the bathroom door in his quarters closed. Even then, they keep a rather open area arrangement for their furniture.

3) At the end of the episode, Thirty Days, B'Elanna first invites Tom to dinner, then orders him to come to her quarters at 07:00. I don't know what the writers had in mind, but I chose to treat these as two separate visits. The characters in the series use the 24-hour clock correctly in too many episodes for B'Elanna to cite 07:00 as a suitable time for an evening meal. In the Season Four episode, Waking Moments, B'Elanna was working the night shift. The meal that she had planned to have with Tom at 07:00 was at the end of her 'day', but she still called it 'breakfast'.


	2. Chapter 2

The Next Morning

Chapter 2

In her quarters, Kathryn Janeway put away her last PADD and finished cleaning off her desk. "Time for 'The Captain' to make an appearance," she told herself. She made a quick check of her uniform, and then exited her quarters on her way to the bridge. It was still quiet, the closing minutes of Gamma shift.

When Captain Janeway stepped onto the bridge the Gamma crew straightened to attention. She nodded her greetings to Lieutenant Rollins and acknowledged the rest of the crew on the bridge. "I'll be in my ready room, Lieutenant," she informed Mr. Rollins.

"Aye, Captain."

The Gamma crew still maintained a sense of formality in the Captain's presence. Out of the corner of her eye she could see them relax from their at-attention posture as soon as she left the bridge. She had a very different relationship with the Alpha shift bridge crew. She valued them as friends as well as colleagues. She depended on them and they responded by carrying more responsibility than most Starfleet officers ever had to bear.

Maybe she asked too much of them. Her senior staff had come alarmingly close to crossing the line between initiative and insubordination several months ago when they refused to implement her plan to stop the Malons from dumping poisonous garbage into a void that Voyager had been crossing. She circumvented the danger that time by amending her original plan. But then, Tom _did_ cross the line when he intervened on Monea against her orders. This time there had been nothing she could do to get around it.

Kathryn rubbed her forehead. She cared deeply for this crew. For their sake, she was more than willing to accept the burden of being the only Starfleet Captain in the Delta Quadrant. She never wanted them to know exactly how heavy that burden of responsibility could be. At the beginning of their journey she had thought that she would have Tuvok to confide in when dealing with issues like this. Back then, she thought of him as her 'moral compass'. But then he had assisted B'Elanna with the dubious exchange of Voyager data for alien technology and Kathryn had lost the comfort of having him as her safety valve. "Enough of this," she scolded herself. "All Starfleet Captains in the Delta Quadrant should get to work."

Elsewhere on the ship, after a quick stop in the mess hall, Tom Paris headed down to Astrometrics to meet up with Commander Chakotay. Tom had intended to escape from the mess hall with only a cup of coffee. But, there had been no awkward questions thrown at him by the crewmembers there, no cold shoulders either. He had let Neelix talk him into trying something that looked blue and tasted red.

Tom was more off balance today than he had been in a long time. Before Caldik Prime, he had thought that he understood everything about how the world worked. After Caldik Prime he hadn't been sure of anything any more. He had learned to protect himself by using his talent for observing people to keep them at arm's length. He read their body language and their facial expressions so that he had enough warning to back away from them before they could back away from him, or worse. It turned out to be a very useful skill to have in prison. Knowing who was dangerous, who was not, who was planning something, who was just making conversation, it was a survival skill.

These past few years he had come to know Voyager's crew well. He understood his place in the daily life of the ship. Now he wasn't quite sure what to expect anymore. There was this gap. Life on the ship had gone on and he hadn't been a part of it. He had prepared himself for some unpleasant surprises today and so far there had been none. That itself was throwing him off balance. He was beginning to hope that there would be no unpleasant surprises in his meeting with the Captain either. He was beginning to hope that he hadn't sacrificed everything that he had worked so hard for here on Voyager.

When Tom reached Astrometrics, Chakotay was already there, waiting for him. "Commander," Tom said in greeting.

"Tom," Chakotay replied. "Ready to get to work?"

"Yes, Sir."

The doors to Astrometrics slid open and Tom followed Chakotay into the lab. Tom felt his stomach clench when he heard the doors close behind him. "Easy," he told himself under his breath. "This isn't a trap."

"Commander Chakotay, Ensign Paris." Seven's cool voice greeted the two officers.

"Seven," Chakotay responded. "I'd like you to show Mr. Paris the current course projections and let him look over last month's flight logs. He's going to check out the helm this afternoon. Something is not quite right with the controls. If he has a clearer picture of what this ship has been through, he should be able to help us figure out what's wrong."

"I thought all necessary repairs had been completed. Lt. Torres spent enough time working on the engines this month," Seven stated bluntly.

It was at times like this that Chakotay wished that Seven would learn the difference between honesty and tactlessness.

As was often the case in the past, Tom Paris stepped in to smooth things over. "B'Elanna is a great engineer. But it takes more than an engineer to keep Voyager flying at her best."

"Do you intend to complete the repairs yourself, Ensign?"

Tom noticed that neither Seven nor Tuvok had any hesitation about using his new title. Not that he minded too much. He had known what he was getting into when he started this. He wasn't about to complain now. Neelix, Seven, Doc, they all had to do their jobs without any formal rank at all. He certainly wasn't going to bend Harry's ear about how tough it was to be an Ensign. Besides, B'Elanna had very effectively taken care of any sting he might have felt from the title. He tried to keep the color from rising on his face when he recalled what else she had said when she called him 'Ensign' earlier today in her quarters.

"Ensign?" prompted Seven.

His thoughts must have wandered off longer than he realized. He pulled his attention back to the matter at hand. "It takes a top pilot to feel the movement of the ship through the controls and to fine tune the helm. That's where _I_ come in," he explained with his old assurance.

A skeptical, "Indeed?" was her only comment.

"Well," Chakotay said, breaking into this professional face-off. "You both seem to have things under control here. I'll let you two experts get down to work. Tom, when you're finished in Astrometrics I've set up some simulations for you on Holodeck Two. I want you to try out some of the maneuvers that the ship was put through last month. See if you can find any connection to those glitches we've noticed. And don't forget you have a meeting with the Captain at 11:00 hours."

"Aye, Sir," Tom replied.

Chakotay gave both of them a final appraising look. Then he left. Tom felt his stomach tighten again when the doors closed behind Chakotay. Tom closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again.

"Ensign Paris, are you well?" Seven inquired with some concern.

"I'm fine, Seven." Tom found that it helped if he could focus on the giant star chart projected across most of one whole wall of the lab. He knew that it was only a matter of time until his reactions returned to a more normal level. He took a deep breath and smiled reassuringly at Seven before walking over to one of the panels to access the data on the course projections.

Meanwhile, Chakotay made a short detour to Engineering to see how B'Elanna was doing, and then continued on to the bridge. He found the Captain in her ready room buried in work. "Good morning, Kathryn. I see you were up early again today."

"Good morning. How's our wayward crewmember?" she asked, ignoring the dig at her lack of sleep.

"I left him with Seven in Astrometrics. He was a bit unsteady, but definitely holding his own. I've set up some flight simulations for him on Holodeck Two. He should find the rest of the morning a little less abrasive."

Kathryn smiled ruefully at her First Officer. "At least _part_ of the rest of the morning."

Chakotay sat down across from her. He considered her a moment before speaking. "There's a betting pool running on the lower decks about what's going to happen in your meeting with Tom. The odds-on favorite has you taking him off the helm and restricting him to duties in Sickbay. There is also a long shot that's gaining in popularity. That one has him 'losing his cool' and decking you. You end up in Sickbay with a broken nose."

"Does anyone take this stuff seriously?" she asked in disbelief.

"Personally, I think the whole pool is a ploy by the Doctor to get people interested in going down to Sickbay."

"Now _that_ I can believe! I think that I'd better have another talk with the Doctor," she remarked, half seriously.

"How do you think the meeting with Tom will go, Kathryn?" he asked, steering the conversation back to the topic on both their minds.

"Well, anyone wanting to listen in might be disappointed. I hope we can cover some of the issues still between us, but that isn't just up to me. If Tom has his defenses up and doesn't want to talk, we may only be able to deal with superficial matters. I want to try to push a bit, though, to see if I can get him to open up."

"How are you planning to do that?"

"I'm not exactly sure. I'm a Captain, not a counselor." She smiled wryly at making use of one of the Doctor's lines. "Maybe by being honest about my own feelings about all of this?" She shook her head doubtfully.

"Sounds to me like you'd make a pretty good counselor." Chakotay said gently.

Kathryn smiled her thanks. But inside, she felt again how limited their resources were in the Delta quadrant. She regretted once again that there was no counselor on board. On a personal note, she longed to have another Starfleet Captain around to talk to, someone to compare notes with so that she could be sure that she was doing everything she possibly could for her crew.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Kathryn," Chakotay said, interrupting her thoughts. "Everyone knows that you're doing the best you can for this crew."

"_Everyone_? Is that why the betting pool thinks that Tom will try to punch me in the nose?" she asked. Her sense of humor was well and truly tickled by the absurdity.

"Don't pay attention to the betting pool, Kathryn. No one else does. I think they're calling it 'Worst Case Scenario'. I may be wrong, though. It might actually be _wildest_ case scenario."

She shot him an exasperated look when she realized that he had been pulling her leg about the betting pool all along.

In the corridor outside Holodeck Two, Harry Kim checked to see which program was running. He knew that Tom was inside one of the holodecks, working on some kind of flight simulation. Harry opened the doors and walked into a holodeck version of Voyager's bridge. The bridge was empty except for a single figure at the conn. The holodeck's view screen was in full operation.

Harry made his way down to the conn where Tom was sitting with his ear close to one of the panels. Tom was entering a series of commands and then pausing to listen to something. Or maybe he was trying to feel something through his fingers. Tom finally noticed that he was no longer alone. "Hey, Harry! How long have you been standing there?" he called over his shoulder.

"Not long," Harry answered. "I'm taking a break and I thought maybe you could use one too."

Tom swung around and sat back in his chair. "Thanks, Harry, but I think I'll pass on the offer this time. I'm trying to track down a glitch in the impulse controls." Tom gestured toward one of the panels. "I know what it feels like and how to compensate for it. I need to figure out what kind of maneuver triggers it and how much of a problem it will be if we can't fix it right away. How about meeting for lunch instead?"

"Aren't you having lunch with B'Elanna?"

"No, she commed a little while ago. She's working through lunch so she can finish up early and get ready for tonight. She's planning a special dinner for us."

"A special dinner! That sounds good! Maybe I should drop by and join you two." Harry suggested with mock seriousness.

"Harry," Tom said with an exaggerated tone of his own. "Don't take this the wrong way. You _are_ my best friend. But, I definitely _do_ _not_ want to see you at dinner tonight." Then he smiled.

"Right. Lunch it is then," said Harry, smiling back.

"Harry?" Tom began again. "I wanted to thank you for coming to visit me in the brig. It meant a lot to me. I'm sorry I was such a jerk about it at the time."

Harry held back his own regrets. He would have liked to apologize for not being more tactful that day. But, he knew that if he did that, Tom would only try to make _him_ feel better. Tom had enough to deal with today. Harry didn't want to add to Tom's concerns. Harry clapped his hand on Tom's shoulder and confided conspiratorially. "That's okay. I'm your best friend remember? That means I'm still your friend even when you're being a jerk."

He was rewarded when Tom beamed him that delighted smile he had whenever Harry stood up for himself.

Author's Notes: no notes for chapter two


	3. Chapter 3

The next Morning 

Chapter 3

Kathryn Janeway rubbed the back of her neck to work out the kink that had developed there. It had been a long day already and she still had a full day ahead of her. She decided that now was a good time to take a few minutes to relax and re-energize.

'Be-bop!' The two toned signal on her door announced a change of plans.

"Come in."

Seven of Nine strode purposefully up to the Captain's desk. "I've updated the recommended course projections through the region up to Devore space," she announced in the matter-of-fact tone she used and presented the Captain with yet another PADD. "Ensign Paris was able to make some improvements to the original projections."

"Do you have any more information about the Devore, Seven?"

"No, Captain. The Devore were never assimilated by the Borg. The species that were assimilated from this region had little contact with them. Apparently the Devore keep very much to their established borders. Perhaps that is why they escaped notice by the Borg."

"Perhaps. Thank you, Seven," said the Captain, indicating that Seven could now leave.

"Captain, I am curious."

Kathryn Janeway recognized the line that often opened challenging, and frequently inopportune, discussions with Seven. She bowed to the inevitable. "Curious about what?" she asked.

"Members of this crew appear to be pleased that Ensign Paris is returning to duty."

"That's not so surprising," the Captain explained patiently. "He's an important member of the crew and a friend to many on the ship. Aren't you pleased that he's back?" she asked, leading Seven to examine her own reasons for raising the issue.

"Yes." Seven answered simply. "I was able to complete the course projections more efficiently with his input," she explained. "The work proceeded more quickly than has been the case during his absence. I find it puzzling that his manner appears to be casual, and yet his work is, nevertheless, efficient." Seven seemed to be annoyed by this contradiction. "His approach to work is very different from that of Ensign Kim or Lt. Torres. His manner when fulfilling his duties is … unique."

"Yes, it is!" the Captain agreed. She smiled at Seven's understated summary of Tom Paris and his uniqueness.

"Captain, you seem pleased as well."

"I _am_ pleased, Seven."

"Yet you confined Ensign Paris to the brig for thirty days."

"It was necessary. He disobeyed a direct order and violated Monean laws."

"Monean laws are irrelevant. We are no longer in Monean space. We left before the start of Ensign Paris' confinement."

"Their laws are not irrelevant, Seven. It is one of _our_ rules that we abide by the laws of other species while in their space. We were bound by that obligation."

"That is confusing."

"Sometimes," the Captain agreed.

"It is inefficient." Seven decided.

"Maybe. But, respecting other species, respecting their customs and their differences, is a principle that we strive to uphold every day. Our principles are what help us to become better than we are," the Captain explained.

"Ensign Paris claimed to be following the dictates of his principles when he disobeyed your orders."

"That's right," the Captain said, confirming Seven's account of the facts.

"I do not understand."

"Welcome to the club."

"Captain?"

"I mean that having principles and trying to follow them can be complicated. That doesn't make the effort any less worthwhile."

Seven tilted her head the way she did when she acknowledged the Captain's words, but wasn't necessarily convinced. Then Seven decided that her meeting with Captain Janeway was over and left.

The Captain shook her head. Seven was definitely a high maintenance crewmember. Chakotay had once referred to Tom as her personal reclamation project. But, Tom never asked for the close mentoring that Seven demanded of her. Once Tom received his field commission and the opportunity to redeem himself, he acted as if the rest of the work was all up to him.

In fact, Tom became the one who took on the role of supporting others on the ship. He took care of Harry, especially in the early years. He befriended Neelix and Kes, taught Kes how to fly a shuttle. Some people had questioned his motives there. Kathryn knew that Tom had never betrayed Kes' trust. Tom supported B'Elanna as a friend long before they developed romantic feelings for each other. He was among the first to accept Seven on the ship. Even with their antagonistic relationship, it was Tom that the Doctor often turned to for personal advice. Tom had never let him down.

Tom had gone above and beyond the call of duty to justify the Captain's faith in him. The irony was that Tom had been so busy being the 'Good Starfleet Officer' that any of his unresolved personal issues got pushed aside. It was probably inevitable that they would re-emerge one day and even explode the way they did a month ago.

Down in Holodeck Two, Tom finished his last system check, stood up, and shut down the program. He had gotten as much information as he could here. He would have to wait until this afternoon when he actually sat at the helm to find out more. First, though, he had that meeting with the Captain. He wasn't sure yet whether to look forward to this opportunity to talk to her or to dread it. But Tom was beginning to believe in hope.

Back when many of the crew on Voyager had received messages from home through the Hirogen controlled relay, Tom had tried to keep Harry from pinning too much hope on the possibility that he would get a message from his parents. He thought that Harry was only setting himself up for disappointment if he didn't end up getting a letter. He had advised Harry that no hopes meant no disappointments. Harry's answer had shaken him. "I'm not you."

It was strange. In this whole crazy mess last month, Tom had discovered something inside himself that he never expected to find there, a willingness to trust hope. It might not make sense to anyone else, but as he made his way to the bridge he was beginning to let himself hope for the best.

With that hope he knew that he had set himself up for disappointment if his meeting ended badly.

Author's Notes: no notes for this chapter

.


	4. Chapter 4

The Next Morning

Chapter 4

On Voyager's bridge, Alpha shift crewmembers were keeping one eye on the turbolift as they went about their duties. Tom Paris was due at any moment for his meeting with the Captain. Many of the crew ran unnecessary diagnostics so they wouldn't stare too obviously at the turbolift doors.

At 10:59 the doors opened and Ensign Paris stepped out onto the bridge. He looked around a bit uncertainly and then more confidently as many of those on duty smiled or nodded their greetings.

"The Captain is ready for you, Mr. Paris. You may go right in." Commander Chakotay informed him.

"Aye, Sir."

Tom stared at the ready room doors for a second, gathered himself, pressed the signal panel and went in.

Chakotay noticed the many pairs of eyes that followed Tom into the Captain's ready room. Several were still staring at the closed doors. "As you were," he said, to remind them to return to their duties.

At the Operations station, Harry Kim tried to occupy his mind with system checks. But it wasn't working. Every time the ready room fell within his line of sight his thoughts wandered from his work. He glanced over at the Tactical station to make sure that Lt. Commander Tuvok hadn't caught his latest lapse in attention. Tuvok, however, had also noticed something fascinating in the direction of the Captain's ready room. Harry cleared his throat and Tuvok looked over, irritated at being observed neglecting his duties. Tuvok then pointedly ignored Harry and made a display of diligent attention to his work. Harry suppressed a smile and tried to follow Tuvok's example. What he wouldn't give to know what was going on inside that room!

Once the doors closed behind him, Tom Paris took the regulation number of steps into the ready room, stopped and assumed formal Starfleet posture. His expression was carefully composed, revealing nothing and revealing a great deal. "Ensign Paris reporting as ordered, Captain."

"At ease, Mr. Paris." The Captain watched Tom relax his stance slightly. His expression was under tight control. She had to do something about _that_ fairly quickly if they were going to get anywhere. She decided to try a complete shift from formal to informal terms. "How are you today, Tom? How are things going?"

Tom blinked. He supposed that he could answer 'fine'. But he sensed that his Captain was giving him an opening here, if he was willing to take it. Tom blinked again as he came to a decision. "Well, I'm not at my best right now, Captain," he admitted, relaxing his posture a little more. He tried to keep his breathing steady. His eyes swept around the walls of the room and paused longingly at the view of space outside the windows, before returning to look at her again. "It may take me a while to adjust to everything. But, I'll be okay," he assured her.

She was pleased with this start. He was being frank with her. If she moved carefully, he might take the next step. She noticed the tension in his face and the relief in his eyes when he looked out the ready room windows. She stood up and casually walked around her desk to stand in front of the railing that separated her work area from the informal seating area next to the panel of windows. Tom altered his position to face her. The lines of tension around his eyes eased perceptibly. His breathing began to slow to a more regular rate. "It will take some adjustments," she agreed. "But it's good to have you back." She smiled encouragingly and gave him a bit of time by turning the conversation to ship's business. "Chakotay told me that you were tracking down some problems with the helm controls."

"That's right," he said, breathing carefully. "They're minor glitches. They shouldn't present a problem under normal flight conditions. We still need to figure out what effect they'll have if we push the ship in an emergency. I'll know more this afternoon when I try out some maneuvers at the helm."

"Let Chakotay know what you find. We're heading into a large area of space controlled by a people called the Devore. From what we have been able to find out about them, they won't take kindly to unexpected emergencies. I want Voyager to be in top form when we enter their space."

"Understood."

"Tom." She gathered his full attention before she continued. "I want to know if you have any questions, anything that you feel you need to ask me."

Tom stared. There were so many questions, so much between them still unsaid. Was she saying that this was the time to discuss everything? If he had learned anything from Caldik Prime, it was that it was better to face problems sooner rather than later. So he looked directly at the Captain and said, "Captain, don't _you_ want to ask _me_ questions, about what happened?"

She looked at him speculatively. "That depends. There's a great deal that we both need to discuss. When I say _both_ I mean that you have to be willing to talk as well. Are you ready to talk to me?"

Was he ready? He wasn't sure. Even after thirty days of thinking, some things were still all in a jumble. He had disobeyed the Captain's orders. He knew that his actions had caused problems for her. Still, he was convinced that if he was ever going to be the kind of person he believed he should be, he had to act according to what he thought was right.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I mean, I don't know what to say. I know that I should apologize for disobeying your orders. I _am_ sorry about that. I respect you, Captain. I respect your decisions. I know I made things difficult. Maybe I could have handled things better, done things differently. It's just that I didn't know what else to do."

"Well that sounds to me like a start," she commented. "Thank you for the apology, Tom. But we're still left with a bit of a mess, aren't we? What were thinking down there?" she asked, probing further. "What about the risk to the Moneans on the mining station? Someone could have been injured, even killed."

"Riga knew that mining complex. He knew exactly how many people there were to evacuate from the facility we targeted."

"There was always the possibility that someone could have been missed," she pointed out.

"I ran a scan. I wouldn't have let Riga fire if there had been any life signs present."

"Something could still have gone wrong," she insisted.

"Captain, if the Moneans don't do something about their mining operations, that field generator is going to fail. How many people will be injured, how many will be killed if that containment field collapses suddenly?"

"You may be right. Or they might find another way to solve their problem. In any case, it wasn't your decision to make. You shouldn't have gotten involved."

"Didn't Riga have the right to get involved? He needed my help. He _asked_ for my help."

"Maybe so. But there could have been other options for him to try, less drastic measures. He didn't need to involve you."

"There wasn't time to think about all that. We were going to leave at 14:00," he finished helplessly.

"Tom, you disobeyed my direct order. I couldn't just overlook what you did as if it didn't matter. We're out here alone in the Delta Quadrant. This is a Starfleet vessel. Your actions called into question the very basis of the authority under which this ship operates."

"Captain, no one on this ship was going raise those kind of questions because of me. If anything, they'd just think I'd fallen back into my old ways, acting like a loser again."

"Oh, really? After all these years and everything that you've done on Voyager, do you seriously imagine that there's anyone left on this ship who would believe that?"

Tom felt almost a jolt of surprise at her question. For so many years he had thought of himself as someone who didn't measure up. On one level he knew that he could be proud of what he had accomplished on Voyager. He knew that he had the crew's respect for his work as an officer. But deep inside, he still carried that image of himself as a reject and a screw-up. He realized that this is what he expected others to find if they looked long and hard enough. It threw him now to hear that he could be wrong about that.

"People count on you," the Captain explained further. "You're an integral part of the daily life on this ship - on the bridge, in Sickbay, in the mess hall, on the holodecks. You do more than your job. You care for others. You lift their spirits. You stimulate the crew with new ideas. Did you consider all that before you acted?"

"I knew that when I entered Monean waters it meant that I might not get back to Voyager," Tom said. He was firmly resolved to accept responsibility for his actions. "I was prepared to accept that."

"Were you? And what about everyone else on this ship? Didn't they have a say? Were your friends supposed to forget about you? And what about your responsibilities? Were you just going to walk away from your duty to this crew? Do you know how hard you made it for everyone when you left on that shuttle? Do you know how hard it was to fire that torpedo? This month has been difficult for everyone. Not just because people had to cover your duties. People worried about you. You've made a place for yourself here on Voyager. You can't just ignore that whenever it's convenient for you to do so." She was using some of her anger from last month to push through his composure. She only hoped it didn't backfire.

Tom's faced was flushed, trying to hold onto his control. "Captain, I know you have every right to be angry…"

"You're damn right I'm angry! You ignored your responsibility to this crew when you left this ship. You put your personal agenda ahead of your duty to them and to me."

"I know that!" he burst out. "I know that," he repeated in a more measured tone, somewhat shocked by his own outburst. "I know that it seems like I didn't care about my responsibilities, that I was saying that this ship and this crew aren't important to me. That's not true! I don't know how to explain what I did without making it seem like I didn't care about this crew. But being on Voyager is one of the best things that ever happened to me." He stopped and tried to gather words together that would make sense to the Captain. Make sense to the Captain? Hell, that would make sense to _him_.

"I made sure that the Moneans couldn't blame anyone but me for my actions, not the way I set things up. But, there was so little time," he explained. "And turning my back on Monea, giving up, doing nothing, it felt so wrong. I _had_ to do something, or at least try."

"It was that important to you?" the Captain asked, more quietly this time.

Tom nodded slowly. "I've done so many things in my life that I knew were wrong. What kind of person am I? What kind of person am I ever going to be if I don't try to do what I believe is right?"

"And what about the rest of this crew?"

"I'm no good to this crew. I'm no good to you. I'm no good to myself if I'm afraid to do what I think is right. I'll still be a fraud, a shell of a person with no sense of right or wrong, with nothing but a set of regulations to keep me from making a mess of everything again."

"Is that what you really believe?" She waited, but it was clear that everything was still too raw for him to be able to answer right now. "Things don't always come wrapped neatly in packages marked right and wrong, do they?" she asked sympathetically. "Sometimes there are only difficult choices with no easy answers. You make the best decision that you can and then live with the consequences."

Tom understood that she wasn't just talking about _his_ actions.

"You once told me that it was your own good opinion that should matter to you," she said. "I think you're right. But if it's worth anything, I admire a great deal about the person you've become."

"It's worth something, Captain. It's worth a lot to me."

"Tom, I want you to understand that, no matter how many light years we are from home, Voyager is a Starfleet vessel. I have to be able to count on my officers to uphold and to abide by Starfleet rules. I can't depend on the judgment of someone who won't respect the laws that I have sworn to uphold. As long as you are an officer on this ship, you will abide by Starfleet regulations and follow protocol. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I don't want either of us to be surprised this way again. You need to figure out who 'Tom Paris, Starfleet Officer', can be. While you do that, there is a condition that I am going to ask you to accept."

He looked at her questioningly.

"I won't ask this crew to count on you, only to discover that you've found some other cause or decided that we'd all be better off without you. I want you to give me your word that you will not ask to resign from your position on the ship for one year. If you decide you want to leave after that, you're free to do so, the same as always. I would hope that you'd want to stay with us. There will always be a home for you here on Voyager."

She stopped him before he could try to answer. "I don't want you to answer right now. This is not something to be decided in a moment. You need time to examine your feelings honestly. You resume your helm duties as Chief Pilot this afternoon. You are still the best pilot that we have. The rest of your responsibilities can wait until you're ready to tell me that you're willing to make a commitment to stay. Consider the matter carefully. I _will_ hold you to your answer."

"I understand."

"I think we've covered quite a lot this morning. We'll talk again, soon I hope. You'd better go now and get some lunch. You're due back on the bridge this afternoon."

"Yes, Ma'am." He ventured a tentative smile that was a question and a hope.

She nodded affirmation. Give it time. It _was_ going to be okay.

"Dismissed."

After Tom left, the Captain walked up the steps to sit beside the view into space. No matter which quadrant of the galaxy they were flying through, the stars were always beautiful. Sometimes when she buried herself under all those reports, she forgot to look up at the beauty and the wonder around her.

She chuckled softly to herself. Who would have thought when they began this journey that Tom Paris would get himself entangled in a cause? She had long suspected that her cynical, smart-mouthed helmsman had an underlying streak of romantic idealism. It was an idealism that he had denied. Maybe it was because he felt tainted by his own mistakes. Maybe it was because he had grown up too close to Starfleet.

She had been lucky, she supposed. Having an Admiral for a father naturally gave her a better understanding of Starfleet than most people. Still, her home life had been protected. Her father kept his family well away from the daily life of Starfleet.

Tom's family lived close to the center of everything Starfleet. He became too familiar with Starfleet at too early an age. He saw the foibles and the imperfections and lost his appreciation for how these imperfect people could still strive toward, and even achieve, greatness. He had become a cynic.

"Well," Kathryn commented aloud to the empty room. "His idealism has certainly resurfaced with a vengeance now." She shook her head in amusement at the endless ironies of life.

On the bridge, Tom took the steps up from the ready room and then on up to the turbolift level in single strides, a bemused, but nonetheless pleased expression on his face. Several curious gazes followed him. He didn't notice. He wouldn't have noticed if the whole bridge crew had stood around in a circle, staring at him.

"Mr. Paris!" Chakotay called and just managed to get his attention. "Report back to the bridge at 13:00."

"Aye, Sir." Then the turbolift doors closed and he was gone.

Chakotay raised one eyebrow, and then smiled. "Mr. Kim," he said turning to Harry. "You'd better start right away if you want to catch Mr. Paris in time for lunch. It looks to me like he's flying."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." Harry turned his station over to his relief and hurried off to follow his friend.

Tom Paris paced around inside the turbolift working off excess energy. His thoughts were racing around inside his head. Some people might think he was crazy to feel good about his life right now, just out of jail, rank lost. But if this morning had shown him anything, it was that he hadn't lost the things that really mattered to him, B'Elanna's love and support, the support and understanding of his family here on Voyager, the Captain's respect, the opportunity to keep doing work that he cared about, his own self-respect.

He was starting to appreciate just how complicated life was. The confession that had cost him his career after Caldik Prime had freed him from the trap of having to live the rest of his life as a lie. The action that had gotten him captured and sent to jail had saved B'Elanna, Chakotay and the rest of the Maquis cell from the same fate. The sentence that had placed him in the penal colony in New Zealand had led him straight here to Voyager. Things weren't nearly as simple as they were in the games that he had always liked to play.

Tom stopped his pacing to laugh at himself. "So get on with it," he told himself. "Figure out where you're going to go from here, where you _want_ to go from here."

He knew that right now some doors were closed to him. Others would open, if not today, then someday. Tom knew that the Captain wasn't happy about the way that he had handled things on Monea. But, he also knew that she would support him in whatever decisions he made about his future. She would understand too what he meant about life not being all good or bad, or all black and white the way he programmed his holo-adventures.

Holoprograms were still great places to let your dreams fly, though. He'd have to tell the Captain that - someday.

The End

Author's notes:

1) In the two stories, Matters of Discipline and The Next Morning, in addition to exploring several of the questions that people have raised over the years about Thirty Days, one of the tasks that I set myself was to move the characters from the traumatic events in Thirty Days toward the very comfortable interactions that we saw, quite soon afterwards, in the briefing room in Bride of Chaotica, and throughout that episode. I hope that, in this version of events, this speedy transition makes more sense.

2) I was curious about the fact that in the episode, Thirty Days, Tom responded to the Captain's hail and confirmed that he was disobeying her direct order. He didn't have to do that. In the episode, Alice, he simply cut communications when the Captain said that she wasn't going to let him leave. The only reason that I could think of for him to take the time to respond to the Captain's statement that he was disobeying her orders in Thirty Days was that he wanted to put it on record that he was acting without authorization and that he alone was responsible for his actions.

3) The promise that Captain Janeway asks Tom to make in this last chapter, not to leave the ship for one year, is my own invention. But, it does fit in with some events in the series.

a) It gives another reason for the amount of time it took for Tom to get his rank back.

b) In the Season Six episode, Alice, Tom tells the Captain that he's with Alice now and asks her to let him go. She refuses, saying that he knows she can't do that (not won't, which is what she usually says when she doesn't want to let someone leave, but can't). Since she was presumably able to let Tom, along with everyone else, leave the ship in the Season Two episode, The 37's, I was curious about her choice of words. Why did she say that she 'couldn't' let him go and why was Tom, with his brain hooked up to an alien ship and already not thinking clearly, expected to know what she meant? There may be other plausible explanations, but I decided to create this one and make use of it in my story.


End file.
